


Shadows Over Your (Hollow) Face

by bboiseux, EllaPreuss, Flavortext, lore_and_more



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Critical Robin, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everybody loves Caleb and they want to see him happy, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-08-08 23:02:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16438484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bboiseux/pseuds/bboiseux, https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllaPreuss/pseuds/EllaPreuss, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flavortext/pseuds/Flavortext, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lore_and_more/pseuds/lore_and_more
Summary: Having travelled with the Mighty Nein for a considerable amount of time, Caleb's feelings about this band of misfits seem to have changed. Perhaps they are worthy of his trust, after all.





	Shadows Over Your (Hollow) Face

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the Mini-Critical Robin Writing Challenge, where a team of five writers each started a fic and then passed it on to next author in line, until it came back to the original author who would finish it and make it all work.  
> The order for this fic was EllaPreuss> lore_and_more > Flavortext > moonweave > bboiseux > EllaPreuss.

Just as some people huddle around a fire for warmth, Caleb does his best to try to avoid them, even when his clothes aren't entirely dry nor built for cold weather. The grove they chose to spend the night in gives them some cover from the night wind, but in the end, a fire can't be avoided. Fires lead to people gathering together, making conversation, examining him with prying eyes.

Things he knows will set him off more than he'd like.

When he turns to Nott, asking her to lend him her flask, she only asks if he'd like some company. _Nein,_ he says in a whisper. He tries to smile, put her at ease. _I'm good. You should sleep._

She doesn't argue as he takes the flask from her. Caleb and her have been developing a sort of silent code over the months. He knows she can read the plea in his eyes. The longing for some peace. So she smiles back and nods, and pretends for his sake because that's what he would do for her if the situation were reversed.

Caleb sees her sit down on her makeshift bedroll, her back to him and hands reaching for the fire. A large tree, still in the little circle they’ve claimed for the night, but apart from the centre of it all, catches his attention.

He plops down against this massive oak, his bones sagging in his skin. Shadow conceals his figure from the others, but even from here, he has a good vantage point to see them all. Just in case. Trouble seems to keep finding them at night. A deep sigh escapes from his lips, his chest hollowed and his eyelids heavy. He brings the flask to his lips, takes a swig. Whatever spirit Nott has filled it with is strong, and he winces as it goes down, eyes closed, lost in thought.

“That looks like just what I need,” says a rough voice from above him. Beau.

Opening his eyes, he watches her tower over him, looking as exhausted as he feels. Without another word, she drops down in the grass beside him. Caleb instinctually shrinks away, and chides himself after a heartbeat. He may be tired and socially drained, but he needs this group right now and he knows hostile behavior will only drive them away. _But_ … He steals a quick sideways glance at the monk, who’s wearing her bulky dark vision goggles, a frown crowning her paled, sweaty face. _No one is calling for Beau to pack her things and leave._   _Even when she’s rash and loud-mouthed, impulsive and sometimes aggressive, they still fight by her side._

Maybe they are more forgiving than he gives them credit for.

He looks away, towards the darkness beyond the trees. As he brings the flask to his lips again, he hears a loud coughing from his right. His eyes roll back, and he sighs, before realising he’s doing what he’s just promised himself he would try not to do anymore. Taking another swig, he turns to face his companion.

“You know those look ridiculous, don’t you?” He says as he finally hands the flask to Beau.

“How can you tell? It’s so dark.” Beau snatches the flask from Caleb’s hand and manages a gulp and a half before she finds herself sputtering and coughing in earnest. “Fuck! I forgot how strong this shit is.”

“Our little friend can really drink you under the table, _ja_.” And despite himself, Caleb feels the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. Beau has caught her breath by now, but shakes her head instead of acknowledging him. Caleb clears his throat and holds down a chuckle at his own little joke. “I said our very little friend can drink you under the table.”

His throat burns and his thoughts become lighter, somehow. By now he is genuinely smiling, unable to stop his lips from spreading. And it’s stupid, he knows it, but tough, gruff Beau just looks… completely ludicrous with her face all scrunched up in her oversized, round goggles. He stifles another chuckle, and this time Beau hears it. Her head snaps around and she glares at him, confused. Caleb can’t hold it back anymore. She looks like some misshapen, disgruntled owl. Even more so as he laughs right in her face without realising he’s saying these words out loud.

Beau scowls and pushes the flask to his chest. She shuffles slightly away from him, adjusting the glasses on her face.

Looking up, he sees Nott giving them both a tired look over her shoulder. Clay too glances at them from his spot by the fire, tilting his head to the side, the corner of his lip twitching upward. Caleb gives a nod and steadies himself, tugging his hair back and pulling his jacket tighter around him. It is not particularly cold, but his anxiety tonight feels like ants on his body; even the lingering looks from people he trusts slash like angry glares, so he draws up his knees and takes another long swig from Nott’s flask as she comes over and sits down on his other side.

Bless her, Nott pats his hand once as she takes the flask from his grip, and doesn’t draw attention to his sudden withdrawal. Instead, she leans forward to talk to Beau.

“Hey, did Yasha find more firewood? ‘Deuces is great, but he probably can’t keep that going for long.” The goblin gestures over to the slightly damp logs they’d gathered in the immediate campsite, which have caught but aren’t providing more than a slight amount of light. Beau looks over her shoulder and out into the night.

“Yeah, she found a nice dead tree, she should be back soon.” Standing up, Beau walks over to the fire, picks up one of the sticks they’d gathered and pokes at the flames, sending sparks flying towards Caduceus. The firbolg swats them away and adds a little more wood over the burning logs, before setting up his cooking implements in the dirt beside the pit. He does his best to ignore the bored monk’s continued interference.

“We are low on vegetables. I will have to go looking when it is daytime, and truly stock up in the next town,” Caduceus says, sniffing a slightly floppy root before deeming it fresh enough to be chopped up and cooked. He gives Caleb another glance from across the firepit, ducking his head a bit to catch his eyes through long lashes. Caleb forces a tight smile, and if Caduceus notices it is not quite real, he doesn’t comment, just continues preparing the meal.

Just around the time their food is ready to be cooked, Yasha comes back laden with fresh, dry wood. Her massive frame carries more than what Caleb could ever do. He sees her gently deposit her cargo beside Caduceus, who immediately uses it to feed the fire.

Caleb retreats to check on Fjord and the tents while the flames lick happily at their own meal. A thought begins to take form in his brain as he goes, twisting at his insides.

“Food ready?” Fjord emerges from his tent hearing Caleb approach.

“ _Nein_ , soon,” Caleb says, seized by the cold once more.

Bones pop and crack in Fjord’s body while he stretches, looking past Caleb to the group, before focusing in on him. “Everything okay?” he says softly, mimicking Caduceus, searching for Caleb’s gaze with his own. Except… he doesn’t look away.

He doesn’t look away and soon his piercing eyes become way too intense, focused on him: it’s almost as if he can read Caleb’s train of thought, but Caleb’s not sure this is the time to be speaking these words. So he grits his teeth and makes to move past him.

But Fjord moves faster. He reaches his hand out to grab hold of Caleb's wrist. Not in a rough or unkind manner, but firm. "Hey," he cautions, voice low. He both sounds and looks... concerned. "I don't want you hiding in on yourself again, Caleb. Talk to me."

Caleb swallows. Pins and needles prickle at his skin, blooming right where Fjord is holding him, traveling all over his flesh. A second passes. He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath, then simply shakes his head. "There is nothing wrong," his voice is but a whisper. His signature frown has found its place. He moves his hand away, chances a glance up at Fjord.

Fjord's raised eyebrow makes it more than clear that he doesn't believe a word of that, but that isn't what forces Caleb to revise his statement. No, he's been disbelieved before. Plenty. But something about this time is churning unpleasantly in his stomach, making him feel unsure and unwell. Maybe Caduceus isn’t the only mind reader in the group. Caleb chews the inside of his cheek with one last look back at the fire.

"Caleb?"

"You, ah," he begins, keeping his voice low. It's getting slightly harder to breathe, his anxiety rising, giving him that sensation of a tightening between his ribs. But he pushes past it. "You mentioned a while back about not wanting to have groups within groups."

"...uh-huh." Fjord's worry seems to deepen, the tone of his voice shifting from concern to suspicion. "What about it?"

Caleb feels his eyes glaze over slightly as he realizes what he's about to do; what he is going to have to force himself to think about, to relive, once again. "There was a night when Beau and Nott and I were talking, and I told them... I told them something then that I think I should tell everyone, now."  He doesn’t understand why he does it. Last time, it was for a purpose, but this time. . . it seems for nothing.

But. This could change everything.

Fjord gives him an odd look, and says, “Alright. Let’s grab everyone before dinner.”

 

And that’s how Caleb finds himself around a fire, surrounded by everyone else, telling his story.  The flames are burning hot and high now, with Caduceus tending to the food as it cooks in a cast iron pan. Caleb watches each of them closely—his eyes darting from face to face. The flickering flames make them look so much more suspicious and accusing than simple daylight. But the words spill out and they listen and, before he is even finished, Jester is in tears and flying across the firepit to give him a hug. He is stiff, but awkwardly pats her side. Nott is already there, right beside him, hand on his back.

“I am okay,” Caleb lies.

Fjord looks more pensive. “So that was why you tried to warn me away from the Academy.”

“ _Ja_. I did not want to tell you, but I thought it wise.”

Beau’s giving Caleb a penetrating look. “Okay. So why are you telling all of us now? I mean, I know why you told me before, but why everyone now?”

Caleb opens his mouth to speak, but he struggles to find the words, his mouth opening and shutting silently. Finally, he pushes out a response. “This is very hard for me to say –”

“Caleb?” Nott looks at him with concern. “You don’t have to say any more. You don’t owe any of us anything.”

“Actually, Nott, I think I do.” Caleb runs a hand over his hair, his beard, letting a sigh go. His eyes close of their own accord, and his heart beats frantically inside his bones. “You all didn’t know about any of this, and yet you kept bringing me along, to fight beside you in a battle, trusting that I would be well enough to protect you.”

He looks at each of them —his friends, perhaps?— sitting around the fire, hanging onto his every word. Maybe this is how he gets through it, finally. This could be what he’s been looking for.

“I still see them,” he says, face cast downward, a frown twisting his features. “My friends. My— my parents.” A pause. “Master Ikithon. I see them in my dreams and, sometimes, when I’m awake. And then there’s this… _voice_ ,” he points to his temple, “that still resides in my brain. Telling me I’m failing, that this is not what I’m supposed to be doing, that I’m betraying my people.”

The tiny goblin hand on his back draws circles over his coat, helping relieve some tension off his muscles. If this were any other day, Caleb would ask Jester not to get so close, to release his arm from her firm grip, not to lay her head on his shoulder. But this is not one of those days, and Jester’s warm body is the support he needs.

“And I know that this is not true. I know that I was the one who was betrayed. But, some days, the lines between what’s real and what isn’t get blurry, and I don’t know which voice to trust.” He turns to face Nott. “Against my better judgement, you’ve all grown to mean something to me. I don’t know what I would do if I were the cause of something bad happening to you.”

“Caleb,” Beau quips up, “if we ever come across the people from your past, and if something happens—gods forbid—, it won’t be on you. You can’t control what other people do.”

Caleb turns to look at her across the fire. “But, that’s the thing, Beauregard. I’m not talking about what other people could do. I mean, what _I_ could do to you.”

Her head still on his shoulder, Jester says, “You won’t hurt us, Caleb. You’re our friend. We trust you.”

The iron grip around his heart squeezes harder at her words. “You can’t know that, Jester. No one can. I wish I could,” he finishes in a whisper.

“I think I understand,” says a small voice at the far back of the group. Yasha. Eyes turn in her direction as she speaks up again. “Why you’re telling us this now. Would you like us to keep you in check? To remind you what is real and what isn’t? Maybe hold you back if we see you get too disconnected with reality.”

“ _Ja_. Yes,” he says, awed. The one person he’s spent the least amount of time with seems to be the first of them to have caught on to his exact thoughts.

“We can do that for you, Caleb,” says Jester, a smile in her voice. She straightens, trains her eyes on him, forcing him to look at her. “We won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

“We promise,” comes Nott’s charged voice.

Caleb notices the gleam in her eyes, but doesn’t mention it. Instead, he smiles, because maybe this was a good thing. Maybe his… friends—yes, friends, he can say that now—will know how to help him when the time comes.

There’s a chance he was wrong about going it alone, after all. He’s glad he’s beginning to change his mind about that, now.   

**Author's Note:**

> I don't like titling things bc I suck at it.  
> This was a fun exercise of starting something and then seeing it go a completely different way than what you'd first envisioned. I was not expecting this to go the way it did, but I do love the final result.  
> Search for the tag Critical Robin to read the rest of the fics! There was one more group besides the one I worked with.


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